The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 4, 2399

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They’re at it again. Arcadia and Vearden are at the doctor’s office. Every four weeks, like clockwork, they schedule an appointment, with a few extra appointments sprinkled in between. Today, they’re here for a special reason, as they have decided to preemptively find out the sex of the baby. They have been thinking of her as a girl pretty much the whole time, but they obviously don’t know that for sure. A doctor that they don’t recognize comes in looking at the chart as Arcadia is dangling her legs off the edge of the table. “All right, Mrs. Haywood.”

“Uh, Preston,” Arcadia corrects. “Haywood is his name.”

“I see. And why are you not yet married?”

Arcadia winces. “I thought we had an understanding at this establishment. Where is Dr. Garver?”

He sighs. “Dr. Garver had to be let go, I’m afraid. She was being too lenient with her patients. You know how women are,” he says to Vearden as if Arcadia weren’t even there. “You have to be firm, or people will lead unhealthy lives.”

“Being unmarried is unhealthy?” Arcadia questions.

“No, it’s a perfectly legitimate life choice...if your religion says that you can—”

“It does,” Arcadia interrupts.

“Right.” He’s really having trouble communicating with his patient, instead wanting to focus on the man, since Vearden is automatically treated as a well-adjusted, non-hormonal, reasonable human being who is allowed to make decisions. “Now, we’re here for an echouterogram, correct?” Yeah, he’s looking at Vearden again.

Arcadia snaps in his face. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. I’m the patient. Look at me, please.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just used to dealing with male patients.”

“Aren’t you an OB/GYN?”

“A what?”

Different words for things here. “A gyniatrician.”

“I am, yes.” No elaboration.

Arcadia has half a mind to leave, but she doesn’t want to make a scene. “Yes, I would like an echouterogram. We would like to know the sex at birth.”

“What do you mean, at birth?”

Yeah, she keeps forgetting about stuff like that. She doesn’t really want to raise her child in a world that has flying cars, but no openly transgender people. Assuming it’s even in the cards, though, when will it be safe to travel to any other reality? This place is awful, and this guy is awful. That’s it. They can’t escape to the main sequence, but they don’t have to stay here. Vearden doesn’t even need her to say it. As the hack doctor is turned around to wash his hands—which they’re surprised he even bothers to do since Arcadia isn’t a real person, and can’t get sick—Vearden stands up to grab their coats.

“What were we thinking, normal convex or endovaginal? Now, most ladies prefer me to just stay on the outside, but I like to really get in there, and take a good look around. Wadya say?”

“I say, go screw yourself,” Arcadia spits. She’s wearing her coat over her gown, which she doesn’t intend to return to the facility.

“That’s just the hormones talking.”

“Can I?” Vearden requests of his girlfriend?

“Doesn’t make you any less of a feminist in my eyes.” Arcadia decides.

Vearden holds the door open for her, and then punches the doctor in the stomach as he’s stepping out himself. “That’s..not gonna leave a mark,” he snipes.

They both climb into the car, but don’t leave yet. “We’re going to the government,” she declares.

“I thought you didn’t want to involve them in this.”

“I don’t,” Arcadia confirms. “But to be fair, I said that months ago, back before Team Matic and Kivi had strengthened their relationship with them. I think maybe they can be trusted...or trusted enough anyhow.”

They drive straight to the government hospital to check in. They don’t even have to say anything; Arcadia looks exactly like Agent Matic, and at least some people are already aware of Arcadia’s current medical condition. A hopefully real doctor comes into the room after she only has enough time to undress.

“Miss Preston, how are we feeling today?” That is the right way to start a visit.

“I’m feeling all right. I feel bigger than I feel like I should,” Arcadia replies.

“Well, everyone develops differently. It’s not the size that matters, it’s the strength of the labor pain medication, I always say. We’ll have a look, though. Firstly, my name is Dr. Cenric Best, and I can be with you every step of the way until delivery. It is government policy for gyniatricians to take vacation either one day at a time, or after forty-two weeks. I should ask, are you comfortable with a male physician?”

“Yes, as long as you don’t criticize me for being married.”

He winces. “I’m not married.”

“We had a bad experience with our last so-called doctor,” Vearden explains.

“Well, we don’t like those here; bad experiences. I’m going to do everything I can to make this a safe environment, and a painless procedure. When you look back on these days, I hope you remember them fondly. It will make it easier on your relationship with your child.”

“That makes sense,” Arcadia says.

After a few more questions so that Dr. Best could get to know Arcadia and Vearden better, he begins the ultrasound procedure. He uses the external wand, as opposed to the endocavity one, since it should be good enough for their needs. As it turns out, they were right, they’re going to have a little girl. And when she’s old enough, she’ll decide if she wants to keep being a girl, or be something else, and they’re not going to let anyone in this reality tell her otherwise. Once it’s over, Dr. Best starts looking over the results, as well as Arcadia’s past visits, which the other facility sent over.

Arcadia is concerned “Is something wrong, Doctor?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. It’s just...what’s the earliest you could have gotten pregnant?”

“Very early September; it’s impossible for it to have been any earlier.”

“I was briefed...briefly regarding your origins. Forgive me, but how long is a member of your species usually pregnant for?”

“Forty weeks. It should be the same as you. We’re all human.”

“Of course, yes. It’s just...”

“It’s just what?”

“Well...” Dr. Best wavers. “She’s gestating rather quickly, and...it’s accelerating. If she keeps this up, and I did the math right, you may give birth in April—not June.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 27, 2398

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When Ramses returned to the lab, he inspected it, but by then, Angela had reviewed the cameras. When Erlendr teleported there in his body, he was seemingly disoriented. He didn’t have some elaborate plan, and likely still doesn’t; it was an act of desperation. He wants to be free, and he probably felt like this was his only option. He stole the LIR Map for the same reasons, because it happened to be the nearest object when he first appeared. He might have even been only hoping for a stack of cash, or maybe a change of clothes. He got lucky, really, but now they suspect he’s using it to avoid detection. The map seems to show you what you need to achieve your objectives, not necessarily what you consciously wish. All he wants now is to stay out of sight, so it’s showing him CCTV blindspots, speed traps, and the like. That’s just the guess, though. At least that was Leona’s guess, once she returned home from rescuing her husband.

She and Ramses are sitting across from each other in his apartment. “I’m sorry.”

“You bent over to plug something in, it’s fine.”

“I’m not sorry for that. I mean, I am—I feel like an idiot—but I’m sorry that I’m trapped in this body.”

“Wait, are you apologizing to me because you look like me now?”

“I haven’t showered, I close my eyes when I go to the bathroom.”

“Do—do you want me to absolve you of some kind of sin? Do you want me to give you my blessing to use that body however you need to?”

Ramses sighs. “I’m just apologizing. I would apologize to her, but she’s not here. You’re the closest thing I got.”

“Rambo, you built me the body I’m using right now. You took a sample of my DNA, and cloned me. You have seen me naked, and we’re all friends here. You don’t have to be uncomfortable. This is just a substrate. It might have been weird in the past, but with consciousness transference, it’s just not a big deal anymore.”

“It still feels like a big deal. She wasn’t an empty clone, she was a real person.”

Leona nods. “Did you ever meet Téa Stendahl?”

“She was before my time. You told me about her, though. She was your brother.”

“That’s right. In one reality, she was my brother, and in the next, she wasn’t. She was born Ed Bolton in the eighteenth century, and traveled through time starting in the early nineteenth. He died, and was reincarnated as Theo Delaney. Fastforward to when my husband went back in time to kill Hitler, and created an entirely new reality, and suddenly I didn’t have a brother anymore. I didn’t even know what he was to me until my brain was blended later. When Arcadia was tormenting us on the island, we sometimes had downtime, and we got to talking about it. I asked her why she identified as a woman, even though she had more memories of a man. Was she transgender? She said, no. I’m just me. I’m not a man, or a woman; I’m not even salmon. I’m a person. When I was a man, I felt like a man, and now I feel like a woman, but if the powers that be see fit to reincarnate me as a praying mantis...I suppose I’ll feel like a praying mantis. There was a praying mantis sort of creature in the grass next to us while she was explaining it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Not really,” Ramses admits.

“I guess I’m saying...relax. You’re fine, Reaver’s fine, I’m fine. It’s gonna be fine.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Erlendr is still out there, somewhere.”

“We’ll catch him,” Leona says confidently. “He doesn’t have an identity here, so he can’t even leave the country.”

“He has the teleporter, and he knows how to use it.”

She shakes her head. The teleporter will run out of juice, if it hasn’t already, and he won’t know how to get more. Even if he did, he doesn’t strike her as the type of person who knows enough about technology to modify it to take him anywhere but right back to their lab. “He was only scary because of all the power he wielded in the main sequence. It was power that he was born with, and which is now gone. I bet he doesn’t even know how to drive a car, because he’s never had to before. We will catch him, and we’ll switch you back. Do you believe me?”

“I guess,” Ramses replies bashfully.

“I promise you, this is all going to work out. I just flew a helicopter in and out of a portal that took me to another reality. We’re closer than ever to figuring this all out. Now come on, let’s get back to studying that timonite. Trina is still our first priority.”

Microstory 1571: Secret Compartment

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Prompt

I just found this secret compartment in my grandfather’s old oak desk, and inside it was...

Botner

...his driver’s license! He’s never been married, he’s in his 60s, and he’s been married to the same woman for 25 years! How crazy is that? I had a hard time believing that, but there you have it. Here’s the proof. I’ve had many girlfriends over the years, but never an old girlfriend. After my daughter was born last May, a friend of mine called to ask if I could watch her infant daughter for a few days. Of course, I said yes. Then I asked, “do you happen to have an old girlfriend around who can’t have the baby?” We had a blast. The baby and I spent a few nights and weekends together, but we got to see each other the rest of the time. What did we do, you ask? We shopped, we talked, we ate dinner, and we watched movies. We didn’t actually get to do any of those things the whole time, but what we did do was talk for hours and hours on end. It was nice to reconnect after all these years. When I got my first full-time job in 1998, I saved money and...

Conclusion

...was able to hire someone to help me get clean. I had never done drugs before, but the cleaner says the desk must have been lined with some kind of hallucinogenic, perhaps to stop anyone from accessing it. Now that I’m better, and the things I’m saying make any bit of goddamn sense, and don’t contradict each other, I can get back to the driver’s license. At first, I don’t think there’s anything interesting about it, because I saw his current one in his effects after he died. Little by little, I start to notice discrepancies. Firstly, it claims that his birthdate was last year, and that his license won’t be issued until decades from now. That cannot be right, of course. Is there a smudge on the card? I try to wipe it off, then find myself a magnifying glass. No, it says 2020, which is absolutely bizarre. His home address is weird as well. It says he lives—or will live, as it were—at my friend’s house, the one with the infant daughter I just babysat. Only then do I notice the name. The baby’s name is Indra, and my grandfather’s was Darin. Those are anagrams of each other, which is not something I would have realized until seeing it here on the license, paired with the wrong surname. My grandfather was a time traveler. That’s the only explanation. He’ll grow up in the wrong body, undergo gender reassignment surgery, and then at some point, go back to the past, and become my mother’s father. I don’t know why, and I definitely don’t know how, but I know I have to do whatever I can to protect that baby...or I’ll never even exist.

Microstory 1449: Gender Laws

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Under the Republic on Durus, women were considered untrustworthy. Later on, laws will be passed to allow a woman to earn merit points for her loyalty, and enjoy some extra freedoms, but these freedoms will never include full autonomy. They will never be able to vote, and they certainly could never be allowed to hold public office. They were allowed to work certain jobs, but only under heavy supervision, and with responsibilities that didn’t result in too much damage when they inevitably made mistakes. But what they had not considered until around 2109 was the definition of woman. As bad as the Durune Republicans were, they didn’t see themselves as sexist, homophobic, or transphobic. Their distrust of women was rooted in something completely different from the systemic sexism that pervaded Earthan history. They cited very specific examples of particular women who caused problems for society. It still wasn’t right, but it was at least based on psychology and culture, rather than physiology. At least that was how they justified their position. That led to some questions, however, that no one had had time to think about until the system was fully established. It was clear that two men were totally free to be in a relationship together, but what about two women? Well, lesbianism in itself wasn’t wrong, but now there was a lack of male influence. They definitely couldn’t raise children, because..same problem. New laws had to be passed under the third administration that covered these topics. Lesbian relationships still required male supervision, so a man had to be included to some capacity. This man was obviously not entitled to sex from either one of them, but as far as household duties and child rearing were concerned, he would be in charge. After this was settled, there were more questions on gender that needed to be answered.

Because of the prevalence of time powers—and the absence of help from Earth—technology developed on its own unique path. It was a little steampunk, and a little sword fantasy, and even a little bit space western. They still had doctors, but the medical facilities were severely underresourced. About the only thing they excelled in was the dissemination of theoretical knowledge. The library came through completely intact, which allowed anyone to learn just about anything they wanted. In fact, throughout all of history on this planet, no leader made any attempt to stifle the pursuit of an education. Not even Smith tried to stop people from getting smarter. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough, because reading about performing a complex surgery was a lot different than having the experience to do it safely. The only surgeries that were being done were the essential ones, because if something went wrong, the patient was likely going to die anyway, so at least someone tried. Sex reassignment surgery did not fall into this category. No one had the expertise required to complete a transformation, and they certainly didn’t have the experience. The few doctors with official credentials who made it through the Deathfall didn’t even know how to do it, and either way, they died decades ago. Technology was indeed progressing, but it was happening at a snail’s pace compared to where they would be if they were still on Earth. Still, as far as the Republicans were concerned, an individual had the right to identify as any gender they wanted. This didn’t mean every woman’s problems were solved. According to the Republic’s main tenets, women were not trustworthy. It didn’t matter if they were born with female parts, or not. So someone born a girl could not just claim to be a man when he got older, and suddenly his life was as easy as it was for other men. People generally agreed to use whatever pronouns he needed, but he still did not enjoy the upper class life. On the other hand, if a man decided to start identifying as a woman, she would lose all masculine advantages and entitlements, so there was very little incentive to transform in that direction. Still, it happened, when a woman-on-the-inside just couldn’t take behaving like someone she wasn’t, even though it meant losing a lot of privileges. There were more tweaks to gender laws to be ironed out over time, but this was the start.

Microstory 984: Live Theatre

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I grew up in the same world that you did, even though I make a lot of jokes about being born on a Keserint space station orbiting Pluto hundreds of thousands of years ago, or in the future. One of my biggest regrets is allowing myself to be influenced by so many bad sources of information. As a man, I’ve had it extremely easy, never feeling like I had to transform myself into the perfect people in magazines, or like I wasn’t allowed to wear pants. I did, however, contribute to the negativity this world has offered, almost always without even realizing it. My parents were always very loving, and believed in diversity, but there were so many other things vying for my attention, that not even their good teachings could insulate me from everything. I once had a teacher in middle school who got off on a tangent about some associate of hers who underwent gender reassignment surgery. She talked about how gross that was, and charged us to never do anything like that. She wasn’t an absolutely terrible person, but she was a clueless jackass who didn’t know what she was talking about, and that sort of behavior would never be tolerated today; not even in Kansas. I didn’t feel as sick about the idea as she did, but I didn’t question her position either. I spent years being indifferent to transgender people; time I could have spent being a vocal ally. That teacher fucking blocked something good in me with ignorant darkness, and I will never get that time back. People have died because children are highly impressionable, and are being taught to agree with just about everything a role model says. I’m optimistic about that teacher, and have enough faith in her that she’s changed her beliefs, possibly without even remembering—and thusly not feeling guilty about—the damage she inflicted on young minds. I recall her being fairly open-minded and liberal otherwise. She was just as much a victim of society’s rules as I was; more so, because she was older. The reason I’m saying all this is because, especially when I was younger, I’ve been conditioned to be resistant of certain things that I later realize I like. I had to overcome society’s expectations that I not like live theatre, because I am not a girl. I was expected to like sports and boobs, and nobody outside of my family even thought to let me question these assumptions. I like RENT, and I like listening to show tunes, I miss Smash, and I very much wanted to win the lottery for Hamilton tickets when my family took a trip to New York City in 2016. I even determined the physiological characteristics of a species in my stories based on the possibility that I may be able to help write a musical about them decades from now. They have two sets of vocal cords, so they can sing notes humans can’t, and singing is vital to the conception, and early development, of their offspring. The point is that gender roles are a social construct, rather than a biological one. You would probably agree if you saw Book of Mormon.

Microstory 503: Deering Method Ready for Human Patients

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Metacorp—the organization responsible for maintaining oversight for all medical-based anomaly abilities—has announced a breakthrough in research. Few anomaly abilities inspired hope to as high a degree as those of one Francis Deering. She was born with the natural ability to switch her gender at will. Shapeshifting has proven to be nearly impossible, even in the fantastical world of anomalies, however Deering has always been the exception. Scientists at Metacorp spent years studying Deering’s biology, trying to figure out how she was able to do what she could do. The process was slow, but the scientific method dictates care and cautiousness. It is important to ensure that all discoveries hold up to rigorous testing, and that experiments can be replicated many times. There have also been ethical and legal issues to get over. Though sex-change operations have existed for years, any new type of procedure requires thorough review and discussion. A spokesman for the organization gathered press on the steps at the edge of Straton Pond earlier today, a symbolic gesture to assure the world that Metacorp and Bellevue are still very much in a cooperative relationship. The spokesman, Augustus Beutel, first thanked the crowd for their patience. Thought he did not give a reason as to why the conference started late, a source has implied that a small Operator cult had issued a threat elsewhere on campus. Please visit our crime section for more details on that story. Beutel declined questions from the audience, but said that Metacorp will be releasing a more comprehensive report on their website by the end of the week. We will provide a link to this information once it becomes available.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 1, 2086

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“Do you have any idea what it takes to dig a mass grave with nothing more than a shovel? I have to match dimensions...in more ways than one!”

“Sorry, brother, it was all I had access to.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He wasn’t really all that upset.

“Why do you only have access to a shovel?”

“That’s what I wanna know.”

“Do you remember me?”

“I live outside of time. I’m not immune to all reality changes, but major ones, and ones that would change my relationships with others don’t affect me.”

“So are we outside of time right now?”

“We are.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Alt!Leona said. “You can’t be ‘out of time’. There is no ‘place beyond time’. You can be in a different timeline, or an alternate reality, or maybe a parallel universe, but you can’t just not be experiencing time. I mean, if we weren’t in time right now, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.” She started pointing between them. “Because you said something, and then you said something, and then you replied to him. It’s called causality, and maybe you can jack with causality, but you can’t just...like, have it both ways. You can’t both be subject to, and unburdened by it.”

The Gravedigger, Mr. Halifax stared at her for a few seconds, or for no time at all, since that was how it worked according to her. “We’re in a pocket universe.”

She paused for the same amount of time. “Okay, yeah, that’s all right.”

“Speaking of being all right,” Mr. Halifax said, “if we don’t get you to The Sanctuary soon, you could die.”

“What are you talking about?” Mateo asked nervously.

“Normal humans can’t be taken through time except under special circumstances,” Halifax explained. “Saviors, like your late Aunt, can teleport people to safety, but usually only once. Your father can do the same, but again, he has his limits. If a human is transported by just about anyone else, they’ll eventually get sick.”

“But weren’t those security guards normal humans?” Mateo asked. “The ones who watched over Horace Reaver?” he added. “And also their families?”

“I don’t have memory of that, but I’m sure they were moved back and forth by The Chauffeur,” he said. “That’s his job. He’s the only one who can regularly protect humans from temporal sickness.”

“Temporal sickness,” Alt!Leona repeated. “What are the symptoms?”

Halifax retrieved something from a bag that was sitting on the ground. It looked exactly like the portfolio binder Danica used to somehow find The Blender in 1975. “They vary based on type of travel, degree of separation between egress and return, strength of the traveler, and also just the biology of the human, as with any disease.”

“Is there a cure?” she asked.

“Not once the symptoms start.” Then Halifax corrected himself, “well, there was one case where Meliora treated him, but it took a long time, and Lincoln suffered from heavy side effects.”

“Abraham Lincoln?” Mateo gasped. “Abraham Lincoln, Time Traveler,” he continued in a sort of whisper.

“No, L-O-L,” Halifax said. “Different Lincoln.”

“Wait, this shouldn’t matter anyway,” Mateo pointed out. “Leona is a salmon. She’s just not been activated in this timeline.”

Halifax tore a piece of paper out of his portfolio and scribbled something on it. “I’m afraid it’s much more complicated in her case.” He took a lighter out of his pocket and started burning the paper, eventually letting the remains to fall to the ground and burn out. “I can explain later, but I have to get her to The Sanctuary, and you back to ‘a place within time’.” He winked at Alt!Leona.

Dave, the man who had worked for Horace Reaver’s counterpart, Ulinthra, along with Harrison, appeared in front of them. “Does someone here need a ride?”

“Dave,” Mateo whined. “You told me you weren’t a time traveler when we first met.” Yes, it was starting to come true his belief that literally everyone he had ever met was going to turn out to be part of all this.

“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.”

“Oh,” Mateo said. “It was in an alternate reality.”

“Well...maybe I wasn’t a chooser in that reality.” He placed his hand on Leona’s shoulder and spirited them both away.

“You never really told me what the Sanctuary is.”

“Precisely two time travelers are capable of entering Sanctuary; our friend, the Chauffeur, and Meliora Rutherford Delaney-Reaver. If you tried to go in, you would immediately experience temporal sickness, and likely die within minutes.”

“So it will protect Leona from the Blender, The Cleanser, and even Makarion?”

“It will, yes,” Halifax assured him.

“Good.”

Mateo spent the rest of his section of 2085 wandering around a new Topeka. Much had changed since he had first been there. Upon reaching midnight, he jumped forwards one year.

Mateo spent the first half of 2086 sleeping on a bench in a park. He was happy that parks still existed, even with all this urban expansion. A police officer approached him just as he was waking up to offer him help. Mateo politely refused and made up some story about his roommate needing the apartment to himself all night. The cop was still worried, but she moved on without further question. Without his mother, Mateo was going to have to figure out where he was going to live. Feeling homesick, he decided to go find her old house. It took a long time to get all the way across town, but public transportation probably required an identity, and there was no record of him in this timeline. He was even more isolated than ever.

His house was gone, replaced by some other futuristic structure. A beautiful young woman was just coming out of the building with her dog. She was jog-hopping around, presumably getting ready to go for a run. The dog broke free from her grip and raced towards Mateo. It excitedly jumped up towards him and tried to balance on his straightened knees. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said. “I promise she’s harmless, but she’s also shy around other people. She usually only identifies with...” she trailed off.

He smiled. “Identifies with who?”

“Hey, this may sound like a strange question, but do you like salmon?” She didn’t hit that last word too hard, but she accented it enough that he understood the reference.

He held out his hand. “Uh, yeah...I’m Mateo Matic. I come from an alternate timeline, but I don’t exist here.”

She looked relieved to not have to explain why she was asking a stranger on the sidewalk if he liked to eat fish. She took his hand and said, “Téa Stendahl.”

He shook his head. “You look so familiar, but I just cannot place the face.”

“You as well. Maybe we knew each other in the other timeline. Ya know, we sometimes catch glimpses of them.”

He kept shaking his head. “Maybe...briefly. I think I would remember better if I had ever spoken to you.”

“Well,” she said, “have you ever been to the past? I actually used to be a man.”

“Oh, you’re trans. I’m not sure.”

“No,” she said. “I died, but the powers that be weren’t done with me, so I was reincarnated, this time as a girl.”

“Oh, I’ve never heard of that. Your name is Téa?”

“Yeah, but I used to go by...”

“Ed Bolton.”

“Yeah, so you did know me?”

Mateo wasn’t sure what to say. This was not only an alternate version of Theo Delaney, but a female Theo. In going back in time and killing Hitler, he had inadvertently erased himself from the the future. But he had also changed Ed’s fate so that he was reborn as someone completely different. Now it all made sense. If both Leona’s parents had died, and she was raised by the Gelens, it meant that Theo could never be born as her half-brother. But Ed still needed to be reincarnated so he could continue with his pattern at the pleasure of the powers. He was really starting to get a handle on these time travel complexities. “In my timeline, your name was Theo, and you were reincarnated as my girlfriend’s brother.”

“Interesting.”

Mateo looked back to the building. “Do Aura and Samsonite live here?”

“They do. They too were reincarnated, but with the same gender assignment.”

Even after all these changes, his mother still came back and lived in the same place as before. She would have no recollection of him, though.

“Under what conditions did you know them?” Téa asked.

He was about to explain the truth, but stopped himself. Alt!Leona was already in this, but there was no point in pulling his mother back into his drama. The former Theo, now Téa, was walking a freaking dog. They lived normal lives. It didn’t look like they were worried about Reaver, or The Cleanser, or any other evil time traveler. They were probably happy. He had to let her go. “Umm, well...you know, salmon swim into each other every once in awhile.”

“Yeah, this is true.” She looked at her watch and tugged at her dog who was still insistent she get to know Mateo better. “Listen, I’m going for a run. You’re welcome to join, and maybe you can have lunch with us? I don’t know your pattern, do you have somewhere to stay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I actually have somewhere to be. I appreciate the offer. Really, it means more to me than you could know.”

She took out a slip of paper and wrote down her phone number. “Okay, well, you know where we are. And now you have our phone number. Don’t hesitate to call or drop by if you ever find yourself back in our time period.”

He took the number. “I’ll remember that, thanks.”

“Hope to see you again,” she called back as she was running away and inserting her earphones. Little Téa Stendahl. What a crazy world he was living in.

Makarion caught up to him on the corner as he was leaving. “I thought you might come here.”

“You’re looking better.”

“I’ve had a year to recover.”

“You have a movie for me or something?”

“Yeah, we’re back to the old structure. You’re about to walk sixteen more blocks. Well...you’re probably gonna wanna run.”

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Microstory 351: Tolerance

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Self-expression

Tolerance is the first step for this week, but it is not the last. In fact, if you get stuck on this step, then I can’t be sure it was worth all the trouble we went through trying to get you that far. Tolerance is understanding that there’s something in the world that you cannot change. You don’t accept it, and you certainly don’t like it, but you have finally given up fighting it. Congratulations, you’re on your way, but you’re not done yet. You might feel like you’re being tolerant, but if you keep complaining about it, then that’s not really what’s happening. I’ve heard people say that they’re all right with gay people “as long as [they] don’t have to hear about. Really? Really? How often are you hearing about it. Where are you going that your ears are being filled with detailed descriptions of gay sex acts? You’re probably not actually hearing about it, and that’s just a poor excuse for you to retain your ignorant hate. But you know what I hear a lot? Heterosexual stories. Rape jokes. General NSFW comments. I bet you would be pretty upset if I told you it was okay for you to be straight as long as you kept it to yourself, and that it was “your business”. In fact, I would go so far as to say you’d be enraged over it. That’s because we live in a world where you’re born straight, and of a gender matching your visible genitals, until proven otherwise. And maybe not even then. That’s pretty frustrating, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, because we are now talking only about tolerance. In this post, and in others, I have really driven home this idea of rights for those who do not identify as heterosexual. That seems to be my main issue, but it’s not the only one. There are plenty of other problems in the world, but everybody already knows they’re not supposed to be racist, for instance. They’ve reached tolerance on that issue, so I won’t be speaking on it until later.

Acceptance

Microstory 350: Self-expression

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Self-confidence

I’m not done with the topic of self-expression. I touched on it with the one about sexuality, and I’ll branch out more over the next few entries, and beyond. I feel the need to reiterate that self-expression does not give you the right to express your beliefs if those beliefs are ridiculous. I hate that false maxim of everyone is entitled to their opinion. The truth is that you’re not. Sure, there are different perspectives, and others need to take yours into account, but it’s very possible to be wrong about something. If you’re wrong, you have a responsibility to change. Of course, that presents a bit of a problem, because how will you ever know that you’re wrong? Just because a great number of people are against you doesn’t mean you’re wrong. I believe that people should partake in no recreational drug of any kind, including alcohol. Millions of people disagree, but that doesn’t make my position any less 100% correct. So what can you do? Research. And live. Go out and experience things; learn from others, and even read studies. People have taught you to question other people’s claims, but you should also be questioning your own ideas. You have a right to be who you are, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change, grow, learn, or own up to your mistakes. I can’t remember if it was on this site, but I’ve told a story before about how I long ago didn’t understand transgendered people. I thought that being of one gender with the appearance of another was their identity, and that they shouldn’t change their bodies. I was wrong, and even though I was just a kid at the time, I’m ashamed for having let myself be so uninformed. This all sounds like a grand tangent from what this entry is supposed to be about, but it isn’t really. You already get that you’re supposed “be yourself” so the only way for me to elaborate on that is to make sure you also understand that being yourself doesn’t mean being stubborn, ignorant, or afraid to evolve.

Tolerance

Microstory 347: Freedom from Persecution

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Weight Control

Wow, that is a really ominous title, isn’t it? Freedom from Persecution. Sounds like something a former NSA analyst would shout after committing treason by leaking dangerous state secrets to the public. Yesterday, from the time of writing this, I had a haircut. The woman started talking about this girl she saw with a buzzcut like mine, dyed hair, and tattoos. She seemed to be against this until she got the impression that I wasn’t quite so judgmental, and her perspective seemed to change. We’ve all been hearing lately about people coming out publically as “different”. Transgender, intersex, non-binary sexuality are but a few examples. Some people think they’re showing courage, while others find such things to be disgusting. I would like to live in a world where no one has to announce who they are, because they don’t owe anybody anything. You shouldn’t have to reveal that, though you were born with girl parts, you’re actually a boy. You shouldn’t have to explain that you don’t see yourself as having one of two genders, or any traditional gender, or any gender at all. You should only discuss who you are with others if they’re genuinely interested in getting to know you, and if you’re comfortable with talking about it. Either way, you should be able to live your truth without worrying about people making judgment calls about you that have no basis, and serve no purpose. You shouldn’t have to disprove stereotypes, or defend lifestyle choices that don’t harm others, or go over how simple physics and biology work (i.e. that a person’s sexuality cannot be transmitted to someone else). Freedom to be yourself does not allow you to do absolutely whatever you want. You are still subject to boundaries designed to protect everyone’s safety and right to be themselves. If you are doing something immoral; if you are raping people, or killing them, or abusing animals, then you definitely need to change. But if who you are isn’t hurting anyone, then honestly, people who don’t like it just need to shut the fuck up.

Physical Independence

Microstory 289: Perspective Sixty-Four

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Perspective Sixty-Three

If you’re against me and people like me, I want to ask yourself one question; can you see the future? I don’t mean, can you literally look into the crystal ball and watch future events unfold? I mean, can you guess where cultural norms are headed? Have you seen a pattern, even just lately? To understand this question, and its ramifications, let’s take a look back into the past, but less than a few hundred years. When this country began, our founding fathers put forth this concept that “all men are created equal”. It wasn’t as novel an idea as you think; the colonies didn’t invent freedom, we just popularized it and generated a standard. The thing is, though, that even then, we weren’t equal. A better translation of their ideals would be “all white landowning men are created equal by arbitrary divine decree”. Yes, the founding fathers were not Christian, but they were theists. In fact, most of them were deists. Rather, their ideas suggested a true belief in deism, and a personal rejection of church notions.  I’ll let you look that one up on your own. Anyway, the reality is that women and people of darker skin were not treated as equals, and would not legally be so until much, much later in history. Even today that women and minorities are on legally equal footing, we’re not actually equal. We still have a ways to go. But my point is that things have progressed, so when you fight further progression, do you honestly believe that you’re going to “win”? Do you really think that a hundred years from now, your descendants are going to be as homophobic as you are? Can you honestly not look down the road and see where this is going? I mean, it’s painfully obvious to me. You even refer to my school of thought as progressive. Why would you do that if you didn’t know in your heart of hearts that my reality is the one we’re going to be living in? I mean, nobody goes to a “make America great again” rally and calls it progressive, do they? Its very point is going back to where we were before; back to when women weren’t allowed to vote, and black people weren’t allowed to drink from the same water fountain. It is a fool who believes that the past exists in the future. The past being in the past is just a basic principle of time and causality; one that I learned as a child. The fact that you’ve not yet learned it as an adult is horrifying, and automatically renders your opinion completely meaningless. You ever see the sun rise at night? Didn’t think so. Even if you didn’t have the opportunity to pass seventh grade, come on...come on. You’re not just an opposing force; you’re on the wrong side of history. Any dipshit can see that.

Perspective Sixty-Five

Microstory 288: Perspective Sixty-Three

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Perspective Sixty-Two

Even with this “love is love” campaign, and others like it, people like me and my family have trouble with public perceptions. Sure, things are better than they used to be, and I have to believe that, but we still have a ways to go. It would seem as though society is finally all right with two people of the same sex being with each other. You still have your holdouts—backwards hicks and smarmy politicians (i.e. people whose opinions don’t matter)—but for the most part, we’re moving not only past hatred, but past tolerance, and into acceptance. It is believed by many that acceptance of transgendered people is our last hurdle, but it’s only the most obvious one. In fact, the world’s increasing appreciation of sexuality is about recognizing the differences in who people are at their core, but says little about practice. As an example, lots of people are all right with gay people, as long as they don’t have to hear the specifics. The question of group marriage or polyamory, however, involves how people behave in their daily lives. Gay people are gay because that’s who they are, but polyamorous people are strange because of what they do, and how they act. But we are not so different from you, as a well-adjusted person would be able to see. Most people will not understand this word upon hearing it, but upon learning its definition, will make snap judgments about the family. We are assumed to be wandering sex-obsessed indecisive deviants. The words I hear most often are “hippie” and “tree-hugger”. Much like bisexuals, the assumption is that we simply cannot decide who to love, and so we just take what we have at the moment, comforted in the fact that the relationships do not have to last forever.

I would like to clear up a few misconceptions. We are not polygamists. Polygamy has a deep history of imbalance, rape, and a sort of numbers game. It is so much a male-centric concept that polygamist relationships with one woman and multiple men uses a completely different word, and is considered even weirder than the normal kind. Certain mormon sects practice a form of polygamy where underaged girls are forced into marriages because they’re raised to believe that this is their duty in life. And when they consummate these marriages with their “husbands” it’s called rape, because it is not consensual. It can’t be, because they’re only married because they’re told they have to be, and to this specific man. You can call it sex-slavery, if you prefer that term instead. And it’s a numbers game because a higher number of wives indicates notoriety and respect. Polyamory, on the other hand, is a form of relationship based on love, mutual expression, consent, and everything else that composes any other kind of relationship. My husbands and wives are all in this together. For us, there is no “primary relationship”. We are all bisexual, and we are each in love with all the others. No two of us are legally married to each other, because we believe that this would distort the group dynamic. We have sex as a whole, in smaller groups, and as couples. Our family is particularly large, I admit, but the standard criteria stipulates only a minimum of three people. We want to be heard and accepted, just like anyone else, but we understand that other changes need to take place before these things will be put forth in legislation, or even the media. And so we patiently wait our turn.

Perspective Sixty-Four